My favourite TV soap opera is the American Presidential Election. It has all the right elements to keep me tuning in every day for more: high drama, intrigue, comedy, false lives, good and evil, the village idiot, and to top it all off, a healthy dose of fantasy.
Sometimes I wonder what planet Americans come from that they take themselves and their political process so seriously. Being restricted as I am here to watching CNN for my daily dose of news, I get the opportunity of sitting through endless analyses, day after day, of what the two presidential candidates, John I-may-look-old-but-don't-let-that-sway-you McCain and Barack I'm-trying-to-pretend-I'm-not-black-and-making-history Obama, mean when they are trying very hard not to mean anything that could be construed as meaning what they do not mean.
Their meanings, motives and manners are muddled over to the nth degree, leaving me wondering how much more can be said. But, just as the repetitious dialogue seems to herald the doom of this soapy, along comes a new character or a new cliffhanger crisis is written into the script that draws me back the next day for further viewing. Hence, Sarah I-can-see-Russia-from-my-bedroom-window-while-applying-lipstick Palin shakes up the normal idiocy with a unique Alaskan cabin fever brand of her own that leaves lip-licking viewers' jaws hanging and salivating for more.
Determined to keep the drama on the rise, and with a little assistance from their well-funded friends, the producers inject a well-orchestrated financial crisis into the mix that brings the sworn enemies from the two camps together, both trying to support and simultaneously distance themselves from the Arch Idiot George I'll-behave-as-if-I'm-still-relevant-while-everyone-around-me-knows-that-I'm-not Bush, who like the court jester, comments ridiculously about things already past and makes no meaningful contribution to the future.
And this all takes place against the backdrop of 300 million extras fervently rooting for their favourite character and behaving as if they believe every word that comes out of their mouths, pretending not realize that it is an elaborate fantasy especially constructed for their gullible consumption.
If you're a hockey mom, Joe Sixpack or even a pig with lipstick, I betcha ya gonna love it!
Dion Marc Delport
5 October 2008